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Posts Tagged ‘Samuil Petrovitch’

To celebrate publication of THE CURVE OF THE EARTH ( UK|US|ANZ), Orbit was lucky enough to be treated to a rare interview with one of the post-apocalyptic world’s most brilliant minds: Doctor Samuil Petrovitch.

In part two of this interview, we try to get to the heart of Petrovitch’s relationship with Reconstructionist America, ask him a few more personal questions about the type of music he likes,and find out what projects he’s got on the burner right now.

SP: What did you want to ask that isn’t already a matter of public record?

What is the relationship like between the Freezone and the USA?

SP: Is there one?

I’m asking if there is.

SP: We’re two mutually exclusive ideologies. Reconstruction America is actively seeking to destroy the Freezone, however they can, and I have to assume that at some point it’s going to come down to whether they think they can get away with annihilating us, including Michael. For the Freezone’s part, and I’m not the Freezone’s spokesman on this or anything else, we have absolutely no intention of getting into a shooting match with the Yanks. All our projections show that Reconstruction will collapse within a hundred years, so we’re happy to play the long game. All their base will belong to us. Eventually.

To celebrate the publication of THE CURVE OF THE EARTH ( UK|US|ANZ), Orbit was lucky enough to be treated to a rare interview with one of the post-apocalyptic world’s most brilliant minds: Doctor Samuil Petrovitch.

Over the course of his life, Doctor Petrovitch has been called a lot of things: hero; cyborg; menace; traitor; father; a**hole.

Now, for the first time, you can meet the man behind the metal (and the myth) in this two part interview. Find out some of his favourite things (cat videos?), discover more about his AI companion Michael, hear more on the Freezone that arose from the ashes of post-Armageddon London – and get to the heart of his strained relationship with Reconstructionist America.

(NB: the below does contain some foreign swearing, as is typical of Petrovitch’s blend of old-school Russian and English. For translations, please see our Russian swearing glossary.)

Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Dr Petrovitch.

SP: Yeah, okay. I’ve been told this would be a good idea, something I very much doubt. I’ll apologise in advance for punching you in the face.

I suppose I should be grateful you’re not shooting me in the face.

SP: Yes. Yes, you should. Are you going to ask me the first yebani question or do I just walk out now?

You’ve been called many things, Dr Petrovitch, and opinions about you are sharply divided. Some see you as some sort of digital saviour, others as the Antichrist himself.

SP: There isn’t actually a question there. Try again.

I’m asking you how you see yourself.

SP: In a mirror. Or I can just pop out one of my eyeballs and turn it around. Seriously, that’s a really dangerous thing to ask me. I could, if I wanted, give you my unshielded ego for the next half hour, but no one really wants to see that, not even me. I have a very strong sense of self, but I’m not so far up my own zhopu as to think that matters at all. What matters is what I do, not how I think of myself as doing. Ask me another, better question.

This month, we’re publishing THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (UK|US|ANZ) by Philip K. Dick award-winning author Simon Morden. It stars one of the best and baddest cybernetically-modified Russians around.

If you’ve not met him yet, super-genius Samuil Petrovitch sits on that fine line between man and machine. He is essentially still human, but having been rather blown to sh*t by an endless succession of people trying to kill him, he’s had more or less every body part replaced with robo-limbs. Not to mention his brain is awesome because he has an artificially intelligent, all-knowing computer uploaded into it. Pretty cool.

Being both a hero to the Freezone and public enemy number one to Reconstruction America, it’s sometimes hard to tell whether we should trust cyborgs to be our überstrong protectors, or melt their parts down for scrap metal before they destroy the human race. We took a look at some well-known cyborgs to find out.

Samuil Petrovitch: Angry; Russian; prone to swearing; has saved the world at least twice and is Reconstruction America’s enemy of the state. He has instant access to the Freezone information network that spans the globe, and can fly pretty much any highly complex aircraft the US military can create.

Plus, when his adopted daughter goes missing (yes, adopted, that’s how much of a good guy he is), he puts his own life in the firing line to save her. As long as you don’t mind sentences punctuated by expletives, we think Petrovitch is one of the good ones.Verdict: Hero

Robocop: Soon to be re-made starring Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson, there is nothing not good about a partially-wounded cop being kitted out with full body armour to fight crime.Verdict: Hero Read the rest of this entry »

A new season of books is inbound, and it sure looks like it’s going to be an exciting one! Here’s the first crop of covers from the Fall 2013 – Winter 2014 season. We’re still putting the finishing touches on a few more, but you’ll be seeing them soon.

Because the smaller scale doesn’t do any of these fantastic covers justice, click on the images below to see a larger version. So pin, tweet, and comment to your heart’s content and tell us which books are already on your “Must have!” lists!

What do you think, is the sun rising or setting over the Metrozone in this gorgeous cover illustration by Tigaer Design? Whatever the case may be, we just love the cover of Simon Morden’s new novel THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (US | UK | AUS).

Grab a copy of one of these wallpapers and get ready for a wild ride alongside the Russian anti-hero Samuil Petrovitch through the streets of a post-apocalyptic London of the Future. THE CURVE OF THE EARTH will be out at the end of the month.

If you need another size for your computer or electronic devices let us know.

Super-genius cyborg and hero of the Freezone, Samuil Petrovitch, has a fiery temper – one prone to exploding with more potency than the nukes that signaled the apocalypse around the turn of the 21st century. Generally, Petrovitch’s explosions of anger will take the form of curses in his Russian mother tongue (or perhaps explosions of extreme violence, poisoning, putting bombs in people’s chests and stitching them up again… He’s nothing if not inventive).

To help you decode the various insults hurled at all and sundry by Petrovitch in Simon Morden’s new novel THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (UK | US | ANZ), we’ve put together a handy glossary of Russian swearwords with a very British translation so as not to offend any delicate sensibilities…

AhueyetSamuil Petrovitch usage: Ahueyet! We’ve got some series govno on our hands.Translation: Egad! It appears our metacarpus have become tainted with effluent.

BalvanSamuil Petrovitch usage: The only way I can explain your actions is to assume your father was balvan.Translation: Your poor decision making suggest there was an extreme deficiency in your father’s intelligence quotient.

Chyort voz’mi!Samuil Petrovitch usage:Chyort voz’mi, this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.Translation: Curses! I find myself in the most hateful of all possible worlds.

DurakSamuil Petrovitch usage: That’s the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from a durak.Translation: Your communication suggests that your skull is a vacant receptacle rather than a protective covering.

GovnoSamuil Petrovitch usage: I have had enough of this govno.Translation: No more faeces for me, thank you.

KalashSamuil Petrovitch usage: Glad I brought my Kalash.Translation: How fortuitous that I have this Russian-made firearm

Kon govnoSamuil Petrovitch usage: I’ve had enough of your kon govno.Translation: I doubt the veracity of your explanation, which has the perfume of equestrian faeces.

Past’ zabej Samuil Petrovitch usage: Past’ zajeb, or I’ll blow your knees offTranslation: Be quiet, my good sir, or I shall be forced to relieve you of your mobility.

PizdetsSamuil Petrovitch usage: This a whole new category of pizdetsTranslation: Our situation is beginning to resemble a cluster of effluent.

PushkaSamuil Petrovitch usage: If I had a decent pushka, this wouldn’t be such pizdetsTranslation: How I yearn for a firearm of significant calibre to relieve the difficulty of my situation!

YajtzaSamuil Petrovitch usage: Your yajtza must be bigger than the moon.Translation: Your gentleman’s treasures appear to be of planetary proportion.

YebaniSamuil Petrovitch usage: Get this yebani tube out of my gullet before I vomit into my lungs.Translation: Kindly remove this fornicating tube from my digestive tract or I fear we will be having a backwards performance of breakfast.

Yobany stosSamuil Petrovitch usage:Yobany stos, is that the only gun you brought?Translation: Ploppers! I had expected you to be more fully prepared for armed combat.

ZhopaSamuil Petrovitch usage: You talk too much, zhopa.Translation: You are surprisingly communicative for an orifice that is not generally used for speaking.

The Philip K. Dick award-winning series, THE PETROVITCH TRILOGY (UK | US) by Simon Morden is about to be released as an ebook omnibus for the first time.

This is ahead of the release of brand new title from Simon called THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (UK | US | ANZ) – also coming in March.

All these novels star Russian émigré and super-genius Samuil Petrovitch, whose incredibly low tolerance for fools and penchant for getting on the wrong side of pretty much everyone makes him the most unlikely hero the world has ever seen.

Or what’s left of the world, anyway.

See, there’s the small issue of the apocalypse. London as we know it has suffered an Armageddon . . . but hey! Life still goes on right?

If you’re entering the Metrozone for the first time, we’ve put together a handy guide to its genesis, and what sort of things you might expect to find there . . . Read the rest of this entry »

Coming up in March is something we’ve all been waiting for: a new novel in the mind-blowing Philip K. Dick Award-winning Samuil Petrovitch series by Simon Morden.THE CURVE OF THE EARTH (UK | US | ANZ) is a pure hit of adrenaline-filled science fiction goodness. It features everyone’s favourite foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, cybernetically-enhanced, AI-implanted, sociopathic, mad Russian genius Samuil Petrovitch.

This novel is a great place for anyone new to the Petrovitch novels to start. If you’re a fan of the likes of Richard Morgan and his classic novel Altered Carbon (another Philip K. Dick Award winner) then this is certainly for you.

THE CURVE OF THE EARTH is set 10 years after the previous three Petrovitch books ended (EQUATIONS OF LIFE, THEORIES OF FLIGHT and DEGREES OF FREEDOM) and features more high-octane action in the gritty world of the Metrozone – a dangerous post-apocalyptic London full of crooked cops, mad cults and gun-toting nuns.

This story will again see Petrovitch come head-to-head with those people he just loves to hate: Reconstructionist America. But this time he’s on a trip to the frozen slopes of North Alaska to find out what’s happened to his adopted daughter Lucy…